Talk:Abu Ghraib

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Two of the photographs used in this article are taken directly from the Wikipedia article on The Ritz Hotel. In fact the whole article appears to be a cut and paste job from WP, crudely altered to present a prison as a luxury hotel. While this last is not a crime, in fact it could be pretty funny if handled well, using copyright images from the hotel's own website for purposes that are clearly not fair use needs an explanation from the person who put them there.

I have removed the Ritz logo with "Ritz" crossed out and "Iraq" written in crayon (or the Microsoft Picture Editor equivalent). It is not appropriate for this article, though something like it would be just fine if the target of the parody was the Ritz or some clear analogue such as the Rotz Hotel. Again I make the suggestion that an appropriate logo, such as that of the US military police suitable modified, would be fair use. --Skyring 10:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not fair use, for the reason given above, namely that it's not satirising the Ritz Hotel. In fact you've removed all the images relating to the Ritz, so you don't even have that slight justification. You can't make it fairuse, just by saying it is and stamping your feet. Be reasonable, please. --Skyring 11:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

logo their, with pictures of prisoners in article called Abu Ghraib implying its a highclass and also implying that the Ritz is not a high class place when it is, thus satire.--Da, Y?YY?YYY?:-:CUN3NotMBLK |_LG8+::: 07:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I see. You are satirising something that isn't even mentioned on the page. Perhaps you should seek some advice on this from a third party.

I do hope that you haven't given up on trying to make this article better. You've reinserted the logo, which isn't at all funny in itself, and very few people reading the article would actually recognise as being the logo of the Ritz Hotel. I certainly didn't, and I've been to the Ritz. You've also reinserted an unfunny piece of gobbledegook, and I quote:

finally Iraqi would have a world class facility to facilitate Iraqi’s elite special citizen.

What on earth is that supposed to mean? I can't imagine anyone getting a giggle out of it excepting maybe to laugh at whoever wrote it.
I am all in favour of the premise of the article, as summarised by you above. Pretend the infamous facility is a high class hotel and the guests are participating in yoga and so on. That's fine. What I'm not in favour of is the execution. It needs a lot of work, and you don't seem to be willing to accept that this is so, judging by the way you keep reverting so as to retain unfunny, unsatirical and inappropriate elements. --Skyring 10:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair use for satirical purposes is spectacularly wider in its application under US law than for academic purposes - satirical and parodical speech is political speech, so has some of the highest protection under the First Amendment. Also, it's a US-based site, so doesn't have the international considerations of Wikipedia. So unless and until someone actually comes by with credible legal threats, there is no reason to purge the article because of sense of tasteless humour failure (which is almost always a violation of rule 2) - David Gerard 13:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, David! I'm now looking at improving the quality rather than deleting the article. As for satirical fair use, I reckon I'm on pretty solid ground here. Using a business logo when you aren't actually satirising the organisation is plain copyright violation. I quote from the relevant UP Help page:

However, the copyrighted items themselves must be used to satirize only what they originally stand for. For example, a McDonald's logo may be used to satirize McDonald's Corporation, but using it to parody Burger King is not covered under fair use, unless it's analogous to the principle of covetousness in the massive media.

The article is presenting the prison as a luxury hotel, rather than as a branch of the Ritz or the Ritz itself. In fact the primary image now presents the Savoy, which is pretty lame in this context. --Skyring 14:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)